Saturday, November 10, 2012

An Educational Correction

I have just had a message from Jackie about a potential common ancestor William Reynolds - but there was a problem in that my online record show daughter Elizabeth marrying Richard Owen when she has Richard Green.

My information had been collected about 35 years ago - at a time when there were few indexes (none online) and research typically meant travelling to the appropriate Records Office and wading through the original parish registers. Research your family was very expensive (in terms of travel and accommodation costs) while going through one medium sized set of parish registers could well take a whole day.

One of my key sources about William Reynolds and his family was his will - and this was the only reference I found to him having a daughter called Elizabeth, wife of Richard Owen. It seemed she had been born prior to William moving to Chippenham, Cambs, so I recorded approximate birth and marriage dates on my records.

So which is right? Just look at the two words and think old handwriting

OwenGreen

... and in view of Jackie's evidence I am sure Elizabeth married Richard Green..

But such handwriting problems are common and in the last 24 hours, on other problems, I have come across

GardnerGordon

ChelsiePhebie

And of course errors can be due to pronunciation as this recent one shows

Neb b o t h K neb w o r th

The important thing to remember is that errors will always be with us and it often helps to consider how a word might look like in handwriting.

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